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Juan Gabriel Vasquezbooks include the 2014 International IMPAC Dublin award winner and national bestseller, The Sound of Things Falling, as well as the award-winning The Informers and The Secret History of Costaguana.

The Ground Truth

The Untold Story of America Under Attack on 9/11

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Overview

From the senior counsel to the 9/11 Commission, a mesmerizing real-time portrayal of that day, why we weren?t told the truth, and why our nation is still at risk.

As one of the primary authors of the 9/11 Commission Report, John Farmer is proud of his and his colleagues? work. Yet he came away from the experience convinced that there was a further story to be told, one he was uniquely qualified to write.

Now that story can be told. Tape recordings, transcripts, and contemporaneous records that had been classified have since been declassified, and the inspector general?s investigations of government conduct have been completed. Drawing on his knowledge of those sources, as well as his years as an attorney in public and private practice, Farmer reconstructs the truth of what happened on that fateful day and the disastrous circumstances that allowed it: the institutionalized disconnect between what those on the ground knew and what those in power did. He details ?terrifyingly and illuminatingly?the key moments in the years, months, weeks, and days that preceded the attacks, then descends almost in real time through the attacks themselves, portraying them as they have never before been seen.

Ultimately, Farmer builds the inescapably convincing case that the official version not only is almost entirely untrue but serves to create a false impression of order and security. The ground truth that Farmer captures suggests a very different scenario?one that is doomed to be repeated unless the systemic failures he reveals are confronted and remedied.

Praise

“Farmer’s accomplishment is to throw 9/11 into fresh relief. A precise and reliable accounting of what happened has been absent until now. This is it.” –Jacob Heilbrunn, The New York Times Book Review

“All Americans should read John Farmer’s The Ground Truth.” –Douglas Brinkley, author of The Great Deluge

“Inescapably convincing.” –Salem-news.com

“An important reexamination… almost thrillerlike in its narrative… As you read it, you may not know whether to laugh or cry.” –Minneapolis Star-Tribune

“Startling… compelling… disturbing. Essential.” –Library Journal

“A major, carefully documented, and deeply disturbing book, one that deserves the most serious attention of every American concerned about our future.” –Haynes Johnson, Pulitzer Prize winner and bestselling author

“Farmer deftly hones in on the nation’s bureaucratic morass leading up to September 11 and the government’s failure to respond on the day of the attacks, distinguishing his book from other accounts.” –The American Prospect

“No one is more qualified to write the definitive book about the tragedy of 9/11 than John Farmer. Fortunately, he has done so. Even more fortunately the language is clear, alive, and instructive for anyone who wants to make certain this never happens again.” –Bob Kerrey, former U.S. Senator and member of the 9/11 Commission